Jousting and endless running (of a sort). It seems like the perfect combination that, as far as I know, no one has ever tried. Until now, that is. Unfortunately, while Crescent Moon Games have quite the pedigree (Siegecraft, Aralon), that doesn’t mean they’re infallible. And they fallibled all over Last Knight.

Last Knight is split between two main modes: a campaign with specifically designed levels that add new challenges the further along players get, and an endless mode. No matter the choice, players will have to guide their knight over, around, and through a multitude of various obstacles via a number of different control options in order to either reach the end or rack up a ton of points and earn lots of gold. Gold, in turn, can be used to unlock new costumes and characters, some with special bonus abilities to make charging through everything a little easier.

Like most Unreal-powered games, Last Knight is flippin’ gorgeous. And not “oooh, look at the detail in those brown and gray textures!” kind of gorgeous. It’s lush, vibrant, and incredibly colorful. And so, so shiny. That’s where the compliments end, sadly.

Once I stopped looking at Last Knight and actually tried to play it, however, things went south incredibly fast. Sometimes I’ll encounter a game with a control scheme that just doesn’t feel right to me, so I’ll switch to another one until I find one that does. It’s a method that’s worked well for me in the past but did absolutely nothing for me here. Every single one of Last Knight’s control options (1 finger swiping, split swiping, buttons, etc) seems to lack the kind of precision needed to navigate through narrow gaps or even hit wooden targets successfully. After my sixth consecutive head-on collision with one such target (despite being in the perfect position to hit it dead-on and keep going), I was ready to give up entirely.

Last Knight is a fantastic looking game, and could potentially be a bunch of fun if it weren’t so unmercifully frustrating. It definitely doesn’t need more options, but the ones that are already present need some serious tightening before I’d consider this game to be anything more than a showpiece.

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